The First R. Austin Freeman Megapack: 27 Mystery Tales of Dr. Thorndyke & Others

by R. Austin Freeman

  The stranger turned, and raised his steeple-crowned hat. “That,” said he, with a low bow to the old lady, “is an entirely different matter. If my presence is a source of disturbance, there is nothing for it but for me to wish you a very good morning.”

  With this and another low bow, and an elaborate flourish of his hat, he turned, and adjusting the mouth piece of his instrument, walked away briskly towards the entrance hall, playing “The Girl I left behind me.”

  It was some considerable time before the galleries settled down again. The students, gathered into groups, eagerly discussed the fantastic stranger, and Fittleworth, passing from one group to another, was assailed by innumerable questions. It was getting on for lunch time when he found himself once more in the neighbourhood of the isolated room where the portrait was in progress, and he noticed, as he passed through the corridor, that the water-colourist had already left. He found Mr. Dudley staring discontentedly through his great spectacles at the picture on his easel, and a single glance showed him that there was abundant cause for discontent.

  “What do you think of it?” the painter asked, looking up doubtfully.

  Fittleworth pursed up his lips. “I’m afraid,” said he, “you haven’t improved it. The tone is certainly higher but the likeness has suffered, and the whole thing looks coarse and patchy.”

  Dudley gazed gloomily at the canvas and nodded. “I’m afraid you’re right,” said he. “I’ve mucked it up. That’s the plain truth.”

  “You certainly haven’t improved it,” agreed Fittleworth, “and, if I might venture to advise, I would recommend you to clean off this morning’s work and consider the picture finished.”

  The painter stood up and surveyed his work savagely. “You’re perfectly right,” said he, “and I’ll follow your advice.” He closed his folding-palette and began rapidly to pack up his materials, while Fittleworth stood, gazing regretfully at the spoiled painting. When he had packed his box and brush-case, Dudley proceeded to secure the canvas, which was very neatly arranged for safe transport, being fixed by catches to the bottom of a shallow box, the sliding lid of which served to protect the wet surface.

  “Are you going to take it away with you?” Fittleworth asked, as the painter slid the lid into its groove and fixed on the carrying straps.

  “Yes,” replied Dudley, “I will take it home and then I shan’t be tempted to tinker at it again when I’ve cleaned this mess off.”

  Having closed and packed his easel, he picked up his heavy colour-box, his brush case and a leather bag, and Fittleworth, seeing him thus encumbered, politely offered to carry the box which contained the painting; and so they walked together to the entrance-hall, where Fittleworth delivered up the shallow box to its owner, wishing him luck in his efforts to obliterate the traces of the unfortunate morning’s work.

  About eleven o’clock on the following forenoon, Fittleworth halted by the easel appertaining to Miss Katharine Hyde for a few minutes’ confidential chat. He did not often allow himself this luxury, for the two young people had agreed that their relations inside the building had better be kept on a business footing. But every rule has its exceptions, and besides, as Katharine had not been present on the previous morning, she had to be told about the musical stranger. Fittleworth was in the midst of a spirited narration of the incident, when one of the attendants approached with a mysterious air.

  “Beg pardon, sir,” said he, “but there’s a Mr. Dudley has come to work at his picture and we can’t find it.”

  Fittleworth frowned. “Dudley, Dudley,” he muttered, “isn’t that the—yes, of course.” And, as a red-haired person with large spectacles advanced in the wake of the attendant, he said, “Have you been asking for your picture, Mr. Dudley?” The artist replied that he had. “But, my dear sir,” laughed Fittleworth, “you took it away with you yesterday morning.”

  The painter gazed at him with owlish surprise. “I wasn’t here yesterday morning,” said he.

  Fittleworth stared at him, in silent astonishment, for a few moments. Then he exclaimed impatiently:

  “Oh, nonsense, Mr. Dudley. You can’t have forgotten. You were working at the picture all the morning, and I helped you myself to carry it to the entrance hall.”

  The painter shook his head. “I was working the whole of yesterday in the National Portrait Gallery. You must have helped some one else out with my picture.”

  Fittleworth started, and was sensible of a chill of vague alarm. The painter’s appearance was so remarkable that a mistake seemed impossible. And yet he began to have an uneasy feeling that this was not the same man. There was the same long, red hair and the same enormous spectacles, but the face was not quite that of the man whom he had talked to yesterday, and the voice and manner seemed appreciably different. And again, a vague and chilly terror clutched at his heart.

  “Shall we go and look at the attendance book?” said he; and as the painter agreed with alacrity, they hurried away.

  “Your name is Guildford Dudley, I think,” said Fittleworth, with his finger on the page that recorded yesterday’s attendances.

  “Yes,” replied Dudley, “but that’s not my handwriting.”

  Fittleworth reflected for a moment in a state bordering on panic.

  “I’m afraid,” said he, “there’s something wrong; but we’d better run round to the Portrait Gallery and verify your statement.”

  They hurried out together, and turning round into St. Martin’s Place, entered the Portrait Gallery, where a very brief investigation proved that Mr. Dudley had been engaged the whole of the previous day.

  Fittleworth broke out into a cold sweat. It was evident that a fraud had been committed; and a most elaborate fraud for, among other matters, an attendance card must have been counterfeited. But what could be the object of that fraud? A copy, no matter how good, seemed hardly worth such deliberate and carefully-considered plans. Fittleworth and the painter looked at one another, and with the same horrible suspicion in both their minds they hurried away together to put it to the test.

  As Fittleworth entered the small, isolated room where the counterfeit Dudley had been at work on the previous day, he drew a breath of relief; for there, at least, was the original, secure in its frame. But his relief was short-lived; for Dudley, who had followed him closely, strode up to the picture and, after a quick, critical glance, turned to him with raised eyebrows.

  “That is my copy” said he.

  Fittleworth felt all his terror reviving, and yet this awful thing seemed impossible.

  “How can it be?” he exclaimed. “You see that the canvas is quite uninjured and the frame is screwed to the wall.”

  “I know nothing about that,” replied Dudley. “I only know that that’s my copy.”

  Fittleworth directed an agonised stare through the glass, and as he looked more closely, he felt a growing suspicion that the painter was right. The brush work and even the surface of the original had been closely and cleverly imitated, but still—here Fittleworth turned sharply to an attendant, who had followed them into the room.

  “Go and fetch a screwdriver,” said he, “and bring another man with you.”

  The attendant hurried away and returned almost immediately accompanied by a workman, carrying a screwdriver. The frame of the picture, unlike some others in the gallery, was fitted with brass plates which were screwed to hard wood plugs let into the wall. By Fittleworth’s direction, the workman proceeded to unscrew one of the plates while his assistant grasped the picture frame. Fittleworth impatiently watched the screwdriver as it made about a dozen turns, when the man stopped and looked up at him.

  “There’s something rummy about this screw, sir,” he remarked.

  “It seems to turn all right,” said Fittleworth.

  “Oh, it turns all right,” said the man, “but it don’t git no forrader. Let’s try another.”

  He did so, but the second screw developed the same peculiar properties. And then a most remarkable thing happened. As the wor
kman stepped back to direct a puzzled look at the screw-plates, his assistant must have pulled slightly at the frame for it began to separate visibly from the wall. The workman dropped his screwdriver and seized the frame which, with another pull, came away bodily, with the four screws loose in the plates.

  Fittleworth uttered a cry of despair. A single glance at the back of the brand-new canvas put the fraud beyond all doubt, and another glance at the screws left little to be explained as to the methods adopted by the robber. To Dudley, however, who was unaware of the events of the previous day, the whole affair was a profound mystery.

  “I don’t see how they managed it at all,” said he, “unless they got in in the night.”

  “I’ll tell you about it presently,” said Fittleworth. “Meanwhile, if you will lend us your copy for a few days, we will put the frame back; and mind,” he added, addressing the attendants, “nothing is to be said about this at present.”

  When the picture had been replaced and the men had gone away, Fittleworth gave the artist a brief account of the happenings of the previous day, to which Dudley listened thoughtfully.

  “1 see the general scheme,” said he, “but what I don’t understand is how that man managed to do it all in such a short time, and with people moving about the galleries, too.”

  “I think that’s all clear enough,” said Fittleworth. “see, the actual exchange of the pictures need have taken less than a minute. Everything had been carefully prepared beforehand. The thieves must have come here on previous days with the dummy screws in their pockets, and it would be the easiest thing in the world to take out the screws one at a time and push the dummies in in their place. And as to loosening the canvas in the frame, two men could easily do that in a minute or two, when once the screws were removed, if they had a sentinel posted in the corridor. Comparatively few people come to this room, you know.”

  “But that would need three men at least,” objected Dudley.

  “Exactly,” replied Fittleworth, “and I think there were three men; the hautboy player was one; his business being to draw every one away from the scene of action, and I feel no doubt that the water-colourist was another; a sentinel posted in the corridor to keep watch while the third man made the exchange.”

  “I see,” said Dudley; “and when he’d made the exchange he oiled out the original, rubbed on some colour and put in a few touches on the high lights.”

  Fittleworth nodded. “Yes,” said he, “that is what he must have done; and it would have been fairly easy since the picture was in such good condition and there were no cracks to cover up.”

  “Yes,” agreed Dudley. “It would, it would. But, all the same, he must have been a pretty fair colourist and uncommonly skilful with his brush.”

  “Yes, he must,” agreed Fittleworth, “and that suggests a very important question: this man obviously knew you well, as is proved by the exactness with which he personated you. He also knew exactly what you were doing and has known for some time past, for this was evidently a premeditated scheme, most carefully thought out. Moreover, the personator was clearly a painter of some skill, and even allowing for his make-up must have resembled you somewhat in appearance. Now, Mr. Dudley, can you think of anyone to whom that description could apply?”

  The painter reflected awhile, and Fittleworth added, somewhat abruptly: “Who commissioned this picture?”

  “This copy,” replied Dudley, “and the one I was doing next door were commissioned by an American gentleman, named Strauss, who is staying at the Savoy.”

  “What is Mr. Strauss like?” Fittleworth asked.

  “He is a tall, lean man, somewhat like the portraits of Abraham Lincoln.”

  “Ah,” murmured Fittleworth, recalling the hautboy player. “How did you come to make Mr. Strauss’ acquaintance?”

  He introduced himself to me a month or so ago, when I was copying at the Luxembourg; in fact,” added Dudley, with a sudden flash of reminiscence, “it was he who suggested that excellent box to protect one’s work. He had one made for a copy that I did in Paris, and he provided me with two more for these two copies.”

  Fittleworth reflected profoundly. The modus operandi of this clever fraud was becoming more and more obvious. Clearly, it would be necessary to make inquiries about Mr. Strauss, and meanwhile, the Director of the Gallery would have to be told about the catastrophe; a horrible duty, to the execution of which Fittleworth braced himself with a sinking heart and with a suspicion that his official days were numbered.

  An unwonted air of depression brooded that evening over the modest apartments of Miss Katharine Hyde, for Fittleworth had just recounted, in minute detail, and a hushed, funereal voice, the appalling history of the robbery.

  “It’s a hideous affair,” he groaned, in conclusion. “The Director took it very well, considering all things, but, of course, I shall have to go.”

  “Did he say so?” asked Katharine.

  “No, but you know the sort of howl that will be raised when the thing becomes known. It’ll be frightfully uncomfortable for him, and the least I can do is to take the full blame, seeing that I actually carried the picture out. I shall have to offer to resign and he’ll have to accept my resignation. What I shall do or a livelihood after that, the Lord only knows.”

  “It’s dreadful for you,” said Katharine, “with all your talents and accomplishments, too.”

  It is hard,” agreed Fittleworth; “just as there seemed a chance of our being able to marry after all these years. I suppose I ought to release you, Katie, now that our prospects seem hopeless.”

  “Why?” she asked simply. “I shouldn’t want anyone else, you know; and as to my freedom, well, I’m free to be a spinster now if you don’t marry me. But we won’t give up hope. Perhaps the picture will be found, after all, and then you won’t have to resign. Is it a very valuable picture?

  “It’s worse than that,” said Fittleworth. “It was a loan, and I should say of priceless value to the owners for sentimental reasons.”

  Katharine looked interested, and being anxious to divert her lover from the subject of their personal misfortunes, asked for more particulars.

  “The picture has quite an interesting history,” said Fittleworth. “It was painted by Kneller in 1688, and the story goes that the king was actually sitting to the painter when a messenger arrived with the news that the Prince of Orange had landed in Torbay. The portrait was intended as a gift to Samuel Pepys to whom the king was greatly attached, and in spite of the agitation that the bad tidings naturally produced, he commanded Kneller to proceed and get the portrait finished so that his old friend and loyal servant should not be disappointed.”

  “And did Pepys get the picture?” Katharine asked.

  “Yes; and what’s more, it remains in the possession of the family to this day, or, at least, it did until it was stolen. So you see, apart from its intrinsic value as a painting, it has this especial value to the family. I had sooner those brutes had stolen almost any other picture in the gallery, even the Raphael Madonna.”

  “Is there no clue whatever to the identity of the thief?” Katharine asked.

  “There was one clue,” Fittleworth replied, “but it has broken off short; an American gentleman, named Strauss, who commissioned the portrait. We looked him up at the Savoy, but he has disappeared, and nothing whatever is known as to whence he came or whither he has gone. He was undoubtedly one of the robbers, but he seems to have vanished into thin air.”

  “Oh, well,” said Katherine, “I daresay the police will soon catch him and he’ll be sure to have taken care of the picture;” and with this hopeful prognosis, the subject was dismissed, at least from speech, though in the minds of both the young people the missing picture remained as a sombre background to all other thought.

  As he walked to the gallery on the following morning, Fittleworth considered, for the hundredth time, the most prudent form of procedure. Should he write an official letter tendering his resignation, or should he adopt the less
final and deadly plan of offering verbally to resign? He was undecided when he turned in at the gate and began to ascend the steps; but he reached a decision as he reached the third step from the top, at the very moment when he collided with a commissionaire who was also ascending in company with a brown paper parcel. He would resign, in the first place, at any rate, by word of mouth and see how they took it.

  And having formed this decision, he proceeded without further delay to put it in execution.

  The Director and the Keeper had apparently talked the matter over, anticipating this course of action. “Well, Fittleworth,” said the former, “the matter doesn’t rest with me. If it did, I should say—Who’s this from, Jenkins?” The question was addressed to an attendant who had just brought in a brown paper parcel, addressed by name to the Director.

  “Don’t know, Sir John,” was the reply. “A commissionaire brought it. He said there was no answer and he’s gone.”

  The Director nodded, and as the man went out he scrutinised the parcel critically and examined the typewritten address label. “If the matter rested entirely with me,” he resumed, “I should say—er—now, what the deuce can this be?” He turned the flattish, oblong parcel, over and over, and finally, picking up the office penknife, applied its edge abstractedly to the string. “I should say,” he repeated—” if the matter rested with me, that is, which, of course, it doesn’t, that—it’s a box. I haven’t ordered any box. I wonder what the deuce—” Here he pulled the paper fairly open and Fittleworth uttered a cry of astonishment.

  “What is it, Fittleworth?” Sir John asked; to which the former made no reply, but leaning across the table, quickly pulled out the sliding lid of the box. And then there fell on the room the silence of utter amazement, for, from the shallow box, there looked out composedly the familiar features of James the Second.

  “Well,” Sir John exclaimed, at length, “this is the most astonishing affair of all. I suppose it’s all right,” he added suspiciously, unclamping the picture and lifting it out of the box. “They’re such uncommonly artful dodgers; still, I think there’s no doubt this is the genuine original. But why on earth have they returned it, after taking all that trouble to steal it?”